The Air Force and MIT partner on AI research. Meeting room tech raises more dough. “Autopilot” for 3D printers. And robot companies teaming up to fill your next ecommerce order. Read on for more of what went down this week in Boston tech news.

—Robin Powered, a Boston startup building workplace desk- and meeting room-booking software, closed a $20 million Series B funding round led by Tola Capital and joined by previous investors Accomplice and FirstMark Capital and new investor Allegion Ventures. Its platform is used by more than 1,300 businesses including DraftKings and HubSpot. Robin says it plans to invest... Read more »

Algorithmia was founded on the idea that lots of people who write algorithms, from academics to private sector employees, have good products but no way to commercialize them. It launched in 2014 as a marketplace for people who want to buy or sell algorithms, and raised a $2.4 million seed funding round.

Today, there’s more to the business, including a service launched in 2017 that helps developers manage and deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms in their applications (keep reading for more on Algorithmia’s early work in the area). Algorithmia now has a lot more money, too; it announced... Read more »

In business sectors such as warehouse operations, automation may put a company’s current employees out of work in some cases. In the cybersecurity sector, automation can take up a multitude of tasks without displacing any staffers—because there aren’t enough qualified humans right now to fill all the jobs. That’s according to Bay Area cybersecurity company Respond Software, whose software is designed to trigger rapid, automated steps to thwart cyberattacks on businesses.

Mountain View, CA-based Respond says security teams at companies these days are overwhelmed with data that flags network breaches—from minor to severe—but there’s a shortage of skilled security analysts... Read more »

San Diego’s prowess in computer science, medical devices, and life sciences makes it a natural hub of innovative digital health companies. The finalists in the Digital Trailblazer category of the Xconomy Awards San Diego highlight the wide variety of healthtech ideas emanating from local startups and big companies alike, ranging from virtual coaches for physical therapy patients, to experimental software designed to address Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Aptiv, a global automotive technology company, announced last week that it has opened a new innovation hub in China—the fastest growing front in the self-driving tech wars.

The new entity is called the China Autonomous Mobility Center, and as a result of the move, Shanghai joins Aptiv’s roster of driverless car testing locations, which also include Singapore, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Las Vegas. The company said the Shanghai center will concentrate on the development and application of its level 4 (highly automated) self-driving technology.

Based in Ireland, Aptiv was formerly known as Delphi Automotive until it spun off its powertrain business... Read more »

Founders’ Co-op, a Seattle-based venture capital firm that has backed nearly 100 startups since its launch 11 years ago, has raised a new, $25 million fund to continue making investments.

According to a document filed with federal securities regulators, it’s the fourth fund Founders’ Co-op has raised, and the money came from 99 investors.

In an email message, Founders’ Co-op managing partner Chis DeVore confirmed it recently raised money for a new investment fund. Asked about the firm’s plans with the capital, DeVore responded: stay the course.

“We plan to keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is provide first-check... Read more »

In the latest installment of the Wisconsin Watchlist, we’re tracking the fundraising plans of two new Milwaukee-area venture funds, and a pair of grants awarded to research and education projects in Madison. Read on for details.

—State Representative Jason Fields, a Democrat from Milwaukee, aims to raise $10 million for a new venture capital fund called Dark Knight Capital Ventures that invests in startups founded by women, minorities, and people from other underrepresented groups, BizTimes Media reported. Fields is a former stock broker and portfolio manager who has made some angel investments, according to BizTimes.

Ben Einstein, co-founder and general partner of hardware-focused investor Bolt, says he has left the venture capital firm he started as his partner, Grace, enters chemotherapy for a cancer diagnosis.

“Through this gut-wrenching experience, the things I enjoy doing and that give me energy are clearer than ever: I am a builder,” Einstein wrote in a post on Medium. “My life revolves around the process of creating new things; from hardware products and companies to relationships and community, my life’s work is to build. Sadly, my time for building new things with Bolt has come to an end.”

The self-driving cars are coming (to a gated development near you). Board additions at a novel tech startup. Another big funding round for an industrial 3D printing startup. The Endeavor v. QinetiQ robot competition’s final chapter. Read on for more.

—Online notary startup Notarize is adding senior LogMeIn and State Street executives to its board. The Boston-based tech company says Larry D’Angelo, LogMeIn (NASDAQ: LOGM) chief sales officer, and Jack Klinck, former head of global strategy at State Street, are joining its board of directors. D’Angelo also advises Boston-based startup InsightSquared and investment firm M33 Growth. Notarize says the number... Read more »

There’s robotics news, clinical research companies raising cash, and plenty of early-stage venture capital money moving in the Boston technology world this week. Read on for more:

—Via Separations, a startup developing energy-efficient filtration technology, has raised $4.8 million in a Series A funding round. Safar led the round, which saw participation from PRIME Impact Fund, The Engine, Embark Ventures, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. The Somerville, MA-based startup says its filtration technology reduces energy use by 90 percent and has applications in the food and beverage industry as well as in pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and paper and chemical production.

—Jason Franklin will manage the Wisconn Valley Venture Fund, a $100 million fund formed last August by Foxconn Technology Group and three leading Wisconsin businesses and organizations: Advocate Aurora Health, Northwestern Mutual, and Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI). Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturing giant, has said it’s building a massive (and controversial) electronics factory in southeastern Wisconsin.

Franklin is a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and an entrepreneur and investor who served as a deal term partner at the Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. In his new role, he will split his... Read more »

]]>https://xconomy.com/wisconsin/2019/03/15/wi-watchlist-foxconn-fund-uw-accelerator-msoe-a-i-hall-more/feed/Jibo’s Last Dance, and the Social Robot’s Hope for the Afterlifehttps://xconomy.com/boston/2019/03/12/jibos-last-dance-and-the-social-robots-hope-for-the-afterlife-mit/ Tue, 12 Mar 2019 11:00:55 +0000Brian Dowlinghttps://xconomy.com/?p=388205

Last summer, dozens of former Jibo employees returned to the defunct company’s Boston offices for a long weekend of pizza, beer, and brainstorming. The task: How do you teach the company’s “social robot” to say goodbye?

Rich Sadowsky, Jibo’s former head of security and privacy, had helped organize the volunteer group over a Jibo alumni Slack channel he set up shortly after the struggling business laid off most of its staff, he said in a recent interview.

Some of the send-off ideas were inspiring—like devising a way to digitally migrate the talking, dancing robot’s personality to owners’ cell phones—but proved... Read more »

The buzz around this area of e-commerce may have subsided a bit, but there are still a ton of box subscription startups plugging away. One of them, five-year-old Bright Cellars, apparently has amassed enough traction to score a fresh round of venture funding. The Milwaukee-based startup, which ships customers four bottles of wine each month based on taste preferences imbibers have shared with the company, said... Read more »

The capabilities of artificial intelligence technologies have increased significantly in the past decade, but there’s a growing sense that new breakthroughs are needed for the field to continue delivering on its promise.

Here are some of the latest headlines from Wisconsin’s innovation community:

—Well, it’s not last place, but it’s still not a great showing for Wisconsin in the latest assessment of entrepreneurial activity in each state by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Wisconsin ranked 45th in the foundation’s “early-stage entrepreneurship index” released in February, which examined a variety of data from 2017. The index is a modified version of the group’s annual national entrepreneurship report, which went on hiatus last year. From 2015 through 2017, Wisconsin came in last place in Kauffman’s ranking of startup activity by state.

Swallowing a pill is a convenience that’s not available for all drugs. The cells and proteins in biological therapies can’t survive digestive enzymes, whose role is to break things down. That’s why insulin and other biologics must be injected.

But what if there were a pill you could swallow that administers the injection inside your body? That’s the idea behind Rani Therapeutics, a medical technology company that has developed a “robotic pill” and is financially backed by some of world’s biggest investors. Today, the San Jose, CA, startup is announcing data from its first tests in humans. It’s a small study—more... Read more »

Here’s a roundup of recent news from Wisconsin’s high-tech industries:

—Rockwell Automation (NYSE: ROK), the Milwaukee-based seller of hardware and software that enables industrial automation, is forming a joint venture with Houston-based Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB), a maker of products for drilling and other tasks in the oil and gas industry. The new venture, called Sensia, plans to sell software-based automation products and services aimed at helping oil and gas customers improve their operational efficiency. Sensia will be headquartered in Houston and is expected to employ 1,000 people and generate $400 million in annual revenue.

The growing epidemic of the fatty liver disease known as NASH, which has no FDA-approved treatment, has led to a frenzied race among drug companies. This week, one company, Intercept Pharmaceuticals, solidified its lead. But how much will being first to the finish line mean when all is said and done?

Intercept (NASDAQ: ICPT) reported interim data from a Phase 3 study showing its drug, obeticholic acid (OCA), reduced liver scarring in NASH patients. The results should be enough to support an approval application, and give Intercept the first-ever approved medicine for NASH. Even so, however, the results were mixed.... Read more »